


Just a Little More Time

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, Holiday Harbinger 2017, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 05:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9369593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: Nyreen has spent her life finding a balance between her heart and her mind. When it gets down to the wire, everything falls into place, and it's like she never had to.





	

**Author's Note:**

> holiday harbinger gift for prideling!! hope u like it!!

There was an old turian saying: _the claws are commanded by the mind, but the mind is fueled by the blood_. When Nyreen was small, her mother had explained it to mean that your instincts, the primal reflexes hard-coded into your every cell, would always win out, and even the most refined, upstanding, in-control turian would eventually fall back on millennia of evolution to keep themselves alive.

The Cabals hadn’t liked that phrase. Control was everything to them. Instinct was to be suppressed, at any cost. Nyreen had been taught meditation, stress relief, anything it took to keep her emotions tightly in check. Emotion meant a surge, a surge meant biotics, biotics meant destruction. Some emotion was fine, they didn’t want them to be machines, but explosive outbursts were dangerous and to be discouraged.

Watching the chaos of Aria’s war against Cerberus, Nyreen decided, not for the first time, it was a damn good thing she’d left the Cabals.

The beams and rafters high above the streets of Omega had been her shelter while she hid from Aria, and now they gave her both a clear path above the battling hordes, and a perfect vantage point as she clambered towards Afterlife. Far below, the Talons carved a safe zone through Cerberus, escorting civilians and backup troops alike. Her blood sang- this was what she was built for, this was what she’d spent her whole life training to do. _Hunt find protect kill_ , droned her instincts, like one of the old hymns she’d heard in vids in history class. Hunt the invaders, find the civilians, protect the innocent, kill the guilty.

The song came to a screeching stop when a too-familiar scent reached her nose. _Adjutants._

Three of them, headed for a group of civilians. The air was thick with their biotics-and-death stench; there had to be more somewhere in the area. In Afterlife? No time to find out, had to act.

Time slowed. Her legs coiled beneath her, pushed off from the beam she’d been prowling, stretched out for the floor below, screamed as the impact jolted her bones. Running felt like it was going to tear out her toe-claws. She’d have better traction if she took off her boots, but no time, no time.

Like a switch being flipped, the concerns of her body melted away to a dull prod at the back of her mind. The universe narrowed to a single, rapidly-approaching point in spacetime. Target count: Three, heavily armored and shielded. Weak points: Exposed faces and undersides. Strategy: Nowhere for her jaws to clamp and crush, little for her talons to rake and maim, nearby civilians made combat hazardous. Have to find another way. Her blood pounded just below her skin, carrying with it a distant memory of basic training. _“Palaven made us the perfect predators,”_ her instructors had told her, _“Now we’ll make you the perfect hunters.”_

Don’t think. Just move.

Hit the deck, slide between Adjutant legs, get back up. The Adjutants were still too far away to do much damage, but their attention was on her now. No time, no time. One hand reached up, unclipped the bandolier of grenades she’d grabbed on a whim, held it close to her chest.

Wait, wait.

No time, no time.

Over the din of the Adjutants and civilians alike, a piercing scream rang out, hoarse and raw like it had been forcibly torn from the speaker’s lungs. _“Nyreen!”_

She looked up slowly, too slowly, her vertebrae creaking in the sluggish soup that spacetime had become. Two figures sprinted towards her, but she only had eyes for one.

_No time, no time!_

She sank, legs coiling, tensing, bracing for another leap. One hand stretched skyward, painting the world barrier-blue. The other thumb depressed the button on the grenade nearest it. More words from the Empire, from the Cabals, ones she’d written on every atom.

_The intangible is unstoppable._

Her hand released the button on the grenade at the same time her legs released their power, pushing her up, up, bouncing off an Adjutant’s head, off another’s back, clear of the barrier and reaching for the safety of the rafters. Below her, one grenade went off, setting off the ones next to it, and the ones next to those in turn. Her barrier broke, and the shockwave propelled her even farther. The world was a blur of reds and browns and yellows, until she slammed into a maintenance platform and everything went gray and blue.

Her cowl ached, her plates groaned, her head felt split in two. But she was alive.

She forced herself up on quaking arms and looked down. No Adjutants. She went back down.

Mom had been right, she mused as her vision dimmed. Her body had known exactly what to do.

_“Nyreen!”_

The scream again. It was harder to pull herself up this time, but she managed, and dragged herself to the edge to peer down. Her vision was hazy, but her nose flared at the sharp burn of biotics and sweat and pure _power._ Aria stood at the edge of the blackened disc where the Adjutants used to be, radiant with devastating glory. Or maybe that was her biotics? She couldn’t tell. Her eyes weren’t focusing.

“I’ll be fine,” she called back, her voice harsh in her throat like so many shards of glass. “Get Petrovsky!”

The blaze of blue-violet hesitated, then vanished, a blur she assumed was Shepard scrambling to keep up. That was fine. They could handle it. Cerberus would be nothing in the face of an angry matriarch and a Council Spectre.

 _Not done yet,_ whispered her instincts as she laid her head back down. _Can’t rest, have to get back up._

Her body disagreed, and the murmurs faded away as exhaustion finally pulled her under the inky surface.

* * *

 

“Nyreen.”

A familiar voice, but distant, muffled. Not important.

“ _Nyreen_. Wake up.”

A little closer and clearer now. Nyreen cracked open one eye, struggled to make the blue-violet blur above her focus, then gave up and shut it again with a groan.

 _“Really,_ Nyreen? Come on, get up.”

A long, low sigh crawled its way out of her lungs, and she opened her eye again. This time, her eye focused quickly, and one mandible flicked feebly in Aria’s direction. “Hey,” she rasped. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Aria rolled her eyes, tapping a few keys on her omni-tool. “That was stupid, Nyreen. There’s a million other ways you could have killed those Adjutants. What were you _thinking?”_

Nyreen grunted and hauled herself up to balance on her left forearm. “I wasn’t. I just… Let instinct take its course.”

Aria scoffed and shook her head. “You and your instincts. How many times have those almost gotten you killed?”

“Does it really matter when I survived anyway?” Nyreen shook her head back, then looked around. They were still up where she’d landed, but the battle below seemed long over. Civilians were carting around bodies and bullying Cerberus troops towards the docking bays, and both Talon mercs and Aria’s people were standing guard at every door in sight. “What’d I miss?”

“Petrovsky getting his ass handed to him.” Aria’s omni-tool made a beeping sound as it turned off, and her boots scraped against metal as she adjusted her position. “Shepard arrested him and took him to the Alliance. We’re working on getting rid of everything they left behind. Starting with Afterlife, of course. You know he threw away my _couch?”_

Nyreen twisted to raise a brow plate and drop a mandible at her. _“You_ let him live?”

Aria didn’t meet her eyes. “It… seemed like a good idea.”

“You’ve killed people for a _lot_ less than what he did,” she challenged. “Why the change of heart?”

Aria fidgeted. _“Maybe_ you and Shepard had something to do with it.”

Nyreen frowned, working her mandibles in little circles, then barked a laugh. “I _knew_ it. I _knew_ I’d be a good influence on you yet, I just _knew_ it.”

“Shut up.” Aria’s lips curled in the notion of a smile, and she turned away quickly before anything could come of it. “Just… don’t be that stupid again, would you? You’re too valuable to lose.”

Nyreen eyed her, processing this, then flicked her mandibles up in a small smile. “You were _worried_ about me.”

Aria turned back to her, lips pressed into a thin line. “Do _not_ tell anyone.”

Nyreen laughed again, then shook her head slowly. “You know, this may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever said in my life, but I still love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> MAN ain't it neat how nyreen does NOT die in an obvious shock-value angst pull...... what kinda büllshit would that be amirite


End file.
